Unemployment Insurance

Several dozen unemployed Marylanders and their supporters -- some with clothespins on their noses -- marched into the state's Office of Unemployment Insurance today and told the agency's director "the system stinks."Organized by the Baltimore Unemployed Council, the protest was mounted to demand an end to long delays in benefit approvals, alleged dehumanizing treatment and red tape that leaves applicants without cash for weeks or months."People are being terrorized," said Robert Simpson, an unemployed worker and council co-chairman.

"Press 1 if you got a job last week . . ."The computerized telephone machines that allow Marylanders to pay their bills and check their train schedules are coming to the state's unemployment insurance system.Officials from the state's Department of Economic and Employment Development (DEED) announced yesterday that they are developing an automated computer system that will allow jobless Marylanders to file for unemployment insurance checks by making a telephone call.The jobless would feed information about themselves and their status directly into a state computer by punching telephone buttons in response to automated questions.

The expected extension of jobless benefits by Congress would give about 20,000 out-of-work Marylanders an opportunity draw an extra 20 weeks of unemployment insurance, state and federal officials said yesterday.The unemployed usually get a maximum 26 weeks of insurance after they lose their jobs, but a bill that has been approved by the House and is expected to be approved by the Senate would add seven months to an about-to-die program that gives 1.7 million eligible unemployed people a little longer to find a new job.About a third of the 9 million unemployed Americans are drawing unemployment insurance, and about half of those would be eligible to collect the extra payments.

Q: Are there certain situations when the government or employers can deny a former employee's ability to apply for and collect unemployment? Does it make a difference if the employee was discharged for cause vs. laid off? Can you collect unemployment if you voluntarily resign? Does it make a difference if it's a private company vs. the public sector? Are bank employees treated differently? T.D., Reisterstown A: Most private and public employers in Maryland, except the federal government, are covered by Maryland's division of unemployment insurance law. Some types of employers are specifically exempt, but banks are not among them.

The Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act of 1991, which increasedunemployment benefits for claimants in Maryland, also changed the benefit entitlements and eligibility requirements for former service members.Benefits are now increased to 26 weeks, and the five-week waiting period before former service members could collect benefits has been eliminated. This affects former service members for the periodof unemployment starting Nov. 17, 1991.There are no retroactive benefits payable for weeks prior to thisdate.

The U.S. Department of Labor announced yesterday that it would give the state of Maryland $3.5 million this year to set up a chain of computerized career centers that could eventually allow job-seekers to dial into a state database of openings from their home computers.Charles O. Middlebrooks, assistant secretary of the Maryland Department of Economic and Employment Development (DEED), said the first grant would be used to purchase a large central computer, software to run a one-stop job application system and as many as 100 terminals to be distributed among 10 career centers around the state.

Complaining that the state's unemployment insurance program is mired in red tape and unresponsive to the needs of the jobless, several dozen unemployed workers and their supporters staged a protest yesterday to demand reforms."

Maryland may be one of the wealthiest states in the nation, but its unemployment benefits rank near the bottom, and should be upgraded immediately, concludes a new study by the Maryland Budget and Tax Policy Institute. Some business leaders and state officials, however, said the study is seriously flawed, and that Maryland actually offers one of the best jobless-benefits packages in the nation. But that's not what the new study found, said Patrick Lester, the author of the study, which is entitled: "Maryland Unemployment Insurance: Underfunded and Out of Date."

Maryland employers would pay more than $61 million in extra unemployment insurance taxes in 1993 under proposals a legislative committee unveiled yesterday.The taxes are needed, state officials and legislators explained, to replenish the trust fund that pays unemployment benefits. That fund, which grew to $590 million two years ago, fell to $260 million earlier this month and likely will dip as low as $70 million, or less than two months worth of benefits, before it heads up again next spring.

THE UNITED STATES does not have a proud history with respect to family leave policy. On the eve of World War II, it was one of only three industrialized countries that had not adopted any policy to address the needs of working families. It took four decades before the first family leave bill was introduced in the House of Representatives by Colorado Democrat Patricia Schroeder and another eight years before it passed and was signed into law by President Clinton in 1993. Between 1985 and 1993, about 27 states had adopted some version of a leave policy.